Perfect Moment
by Queen Bitterblue
Summary: Susan and Lobsang share a perfect moment. Set at the end of Theif of Time


As usual, nothing belongs to me. This is all Pratchett.

* * *

The door clicked behind her, leaving only the dim light through the transom. She put the chocolate in her mouth and shut her eyes. 

A faint, cardboardy sound made her open them. The lids were gently lifting on the boxes of stars.

They spilled out and whirled up into the shadows of the cupboard, brilliant against the darkness, a galaxy in miniature, gently spinning.

Susan watched them for a while, and then said, "All right, you have my full attention, whoever you are."

At least, that was what she meant to say. The peculiar stickiness of the nougat caused it to come out as: "Allite, you ot my fo' a'nen'on, oover ooah." Damn!

The stars spiralled around her head, and the cupboard's interior darkened into interstellar black.

"If iss is oo, Def o' Raffs—" she began.

"It's me," said Lobsang.

Susan blushed, questions and exclamations filling her head. It was imperceptible to the human eye in the darkness, but Lobsang saw both the blush and the quick swallowing as Susan desperately tried to clear her mouth of nougat so she could at least speak like an adult.

"I thought, well, I guess I thought you were gone, off to do god-type, mythic things. I'd say I can't stay long or the class will degenerate into madness, but I have a feeling you've taken care of that." She found she could see again, and that she was no longer in a cupboard—no longer _any_where, really—and that Lobsang was smiling.

"Yes. And yes. But…a moment, perhaps, I can spare." The blush, which had only just receded, crept back into Susan's cheeks. His fingers touched one, barely brushing the skin. "Why are you blushing, Susan?"

She shook her head, mute.

"You think I know everything that is going to happen, so you should blush? I know every possibility, yes, but quite a few of those involve you telling me to get out of your pencil cupboard and leave you alone, so the blush really isn't warranted." He leaned close, and kissed her. "I'd say I've wanted to do that for a long time now, but that phrasing no longer makes much sense to me, especially since most of that was while there _was_ no time. It's easier to say I've always wanted to do that, and so, I have."

The place he had brought her brightened slightly, became a garden at sunset, full of deep emerald grass and more flowers than existed on the disc. Susan took a step forward, and kissed him again(1).

"Why—" she began, just as he said, "I have always loved you. And wanted you." He pulled her close with another kiss, and trailed light, feathery kisses down her throat. Her clothes vanished, as if they had never existed—some small part of Susan, watching rationally, said that was likely what he had done to them: removed them so they had never _been_ in the first place—and as she blinked in slightly surprised confusion, she found his clothing, whatever it had been—had it been at all?—was also gone.

"Handy trick you have there."

Lobsang smiled. "I thought you might like it. I admit, I'd never had the chance to try it until now, but I knew it could be done because I _have_ done, with you, so many times."

"As long as you can put them back," Susan conceded, saving his words to think over later; so this would not be just once. A lifetime of perfect moments, in between the more mundane others, stolen from Time by Time. Why, it was nearly philosophical.

He pressed kisses across her collarbones, down across her breasts. She whimpered as he licked one nipple, and groaned as he bit the other.

"Oh, Susan, you're so wet," he breathed into her ear, fingers still teasing her nipples. The sensible part of her said he hadn't even _touched_ her yet.

"Am I?"

A finger slid between her legs, over her clit and then, with a sudden thrust, was inside of her. "_Yes_, you are, love." Susan groaned, legs spreading, anything to keep him touching her, oh, yes, just like _that_. Soon and an eternity later, the stars—she wasn't sure if they were the ones he had taken out of her cupboard collection or not, and frankly didn't care—behind her eyes exploded into fragments of light, and life, and love.

She had barely collected herself, reassembled the bits of her that felt like they had been flung off, out into the universe when she came when Lobsang slid inside of her. Something deep and primal in her, the truly _human_ bit of her, whispered that this—_this_—was home. This was what she had been aching for without realizing it. The rest of her answered with a resounding 'yes.'

Lobsang stilled above her, concerned. "Susan? You're crying."

Susan laughed, and pulled him close, peppering his face and shoulders with kisses. "I'm wonderful. Please, continue?" Tentatively at first, and then with increasing urgency, Lobsang slid into her again and again. She was so close, on the brink of orgasm, and he paused. Everything paused. And then, immediately and forever later, he began again, harder, faster, and she felt herself disintegrate, unable to see, unable to speak—though she was distantly aware her voice was screaming. The explosion-implosion slowed, and stopped, and reversed, and Susan found herself lying on impossibly, _heavenly_ thick, green grass. Nude. With Lobsang, breathless and sweating, still half inside of her, though he was no longer quite so hard. He grinned down at her. She couldn't help but grin back.

They dressed silently—her clothing had reappeared hanging neatly over a nearby bench just as the idea came to her that she should be wearing clothes, though she never saw his appear nor saw him dressed: he was simply nude one moment, and in loose robes the next.

He kissed her sweetly, softly. "Close your eyes." She did so. "I love you. Soon."

When she opened her eyes, Susan was back in the cupboard, the door still open. The box of stars was undisturbed. The only evidence of any of it at all were the faint tear-tracks down her cheeks, and a piece of ethereal lavender that had gotten stuck in her hair at some point. She removed it, smiling, and set it next to the box of stars to take home later.

Even with nougat, you can have a perfect moment. Susan closed the door, and felt a phantom pair of lips brush her cheek as time began again, the class chattering as usual.

* * *

1 There is the common fairy-tale book conception that kisses between true loves can go on for hours or days at a time for the couple while existing only for moments in the rest of the world. Susan had previously dismissed such a concept, even being familiar with pausing time and being able to continue around it, as fanciful and useless. In the hours or days that_ this_ kiss lasted, she reconsidered her dismissal. 


End file.
